Health Net has awarded a $3 million grant to Hazel Health to expand its virtual care platform into another 200 elementary schools in 10 California counties.
A California health plan is investing $3 million in school-based virtual care.
Health Net announced earlier this month that it has awarded a $3 million grant to Hazel Health, enabling the telehealth company to expand virtual primary and behavioral healthcare services to some 200 K-12 schools in 10 California counties.
The award comes at a time when school-aged children are under immense pressure, due in large part to the pandemic, which has interrupted in-person learning and strained home life. In many cases, school districts have sought to keep their healthcare services open during shutdowns or shifts to online care on the belief that children need that access to care.
"At no time in any of our lives has access to meaningful health services been more important for children," Travis Gayles, chief health officer of San Francisco-based Hazel Health, said in a press release. "Every child should have access to high quality health care no matter their zip code or family income. Hazel's platform has enormous potential to close the gaps in healthcare equity, and we are thrilled that Health Net's sponsorship will help advance that critical goal."
Hazel Health, which reportedly serves some 2 million children in school districts in several states, is working with roughly 130 school districts in California. In Health Net, the company is partnering with a health plan that’s part of the state’s Medi-Cal program, which provides resources for the state’s most underserved populations.
Aside from offering access to healthcare services for children who might not have that access through family channels, virtual care platforms give schools an opportunity to care for students and staff on-site, rather than discharging them to seek care at a doctor’s office or clinic 9and putting more strain on student’s families). They can also offer much-need behavioral health or chronic care management services.
Advocates say these services reduce absentee rates and improve student health and engagement, which in turn boosts test scores and morale. According to Health Net officials, students accessing school-based virtual care services return to class 85% percent of the time, resulting in about 2,300 saved hours of education time.
The two companies are partnering on an innovative program addressing the social determinants of health, with a service that offers free transportation to consumers to healthcare appointments and other resources.
CVS Health is partnering with Uber Health on a new program to tackle a persistent barrier to healthcare access: Transportation.
The two are joining forces to help consumers use free ride-sharing services to access medical care and other services. The program will launch first in Atlanta, Hartford and Columbus, OH, with plans to expand to other areas later.
"We've long known that access to reliable transportation can help address critical gaps in care that often disproportionately affect vulnerable communities,” Caitlin Donovan, global head of Uber Health, the healthcare arm of the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company, said in a press release. “With the past two years of the pandemic only further highlighting today's health inequities, it's more important than ever for communities to have the tools they need to bridge care gaps and achieve better patient and population health outcomes."
The partnership is one of many unique and innovative programs aimed at addressing the social determinants of health, factors outside the clinical orbit that affect health and wellness. CVS Health, based in Rhode Island, is addressing six of those factors – transportation, food, employment, education and housing – in its new Health Zones program, which will use and integrated strategy to tackle those issues.
"Our Health Zones initiative allows us to make a real impact on the health of communities across the country by working closely with organizations that share our commitment to addressing social determinants of health," Ellen Howard Boone, senior vice president of corporate social responsibility and philanthropy and chief sustainability officer for CVS Health, said in the press release. "With the Uber Health platform, we'll provide critical transportation to people within communities who need it most, giving them access to healthcare services so they can live healthier lives and to jobs and educational programs that can help them reach their full potential."
CVS Health is launching this program in five communities to start: Atlanta, Columbus and Hartford, as well as Fresno, CA, and Phoenix.
The announcement comes as Uber Health strengthens its healthcare arm with the hiring of its first-ever chief medical officer, Dr. Michael Cantor, and partnerships with digital health companies Papa, which links seniors with college-aged caregivers, Surgo Ventures, which addresses maternal health issues, and ScriptDrip, which focuses on medication delivery.
Health system executives are taking a close look at the social determinants of health as well, as they can affect not only access to care but clinical outcomes, particularly in underserved populations. Along with forging partnerships to address barriers, they’re also using digital health tools and platforms to boost access to care.
CVS Health’s program comes as the pharmacy chain positions itself in the rapidly growing field of retail locations offering healthcare services, alongside the likes of Walgreens, Walmart and Amazon and either in competition or partnerships with health systems. They’re looking to attract business through the direct-to-consumer telehealth market as well as with health plans who can include these services for their members.
The Cincinnati-based eye benefits company has agreed to pay $600,000 and enhance several privacy and security protocols following a data breach that affected some 2.1 million patients in the US
In a deal with AG Letitia James, EyeMed Vision Care agreed to pay the fine as well as adhere to several conditions:
Maintaining a comprehensive information security program that includes regular updates to keep pace with changes in technology and security threats, as well as regularly reporting to the company's leadership any security risks;
Maintaining reasonable account management and authentication, including requiring the use of multi-factor authentication for all administrative or remote access accounts, and reviewing such safeguards annually;
Encrypting sensitive consumer information that it collects, stores, transmits and/or maintains;
Conducting a reasonable penetration testing program designed to identify, assess, and remediate security vulnerabilities within the EyeMed network;
Implementing and maintaining appropriate logging and monitoring of network activity that are accessible for a period of at least 90 days and stored for at least one year from the date the activity was logged; and
Permanently deleting consumers’ personal information when there is no reasonable business or legal purpose to retain it.
“New Yorkers should have every assurance that their personal health information will remain private and protected,” James said in a press release. “EyeMed betrayed that trust by failing to keep an eye on its own security system, which in turn compromised the personal information of millions of individuals.”
According to the complaint, unknown hackers gained access at an EyeMed e-mail account in June 2020 for about a week, enabling them to search certain records dating back six years. The hackers used that information to send roughly 2,000 phishing e-mails in July, seeking log-in credentials for more accounts. The company spotted the e-mails, shut down the hackers’ access and began informing affected customers in September.
“The Office of the Attorney General determined that, at the time of the attack, EyeMed had failed to implement multifactor authentication (MFA) for the affected email account, despite the fact that the account was accessible via a web browser and contained a large volume of consumers’ sensitive personal information,” James’ office said in the press release. “Additionally, EyeMed failed to adequately implement sufficient password management requirements for the enrollment email account given that it was accessible via a web browser and contained a large volume of sensitive personal information. The company also failed to maintain adequate logging of its email accounts, which made it difficult to investigate security incidents.”
The breach affected 98,632 New York residents, the AG’s office said.
EyeMed is part of the global Luxottica eyewear and eyecare chain.
Coordinated Behavioral Care, a provider-led nonprofit, is trying out new technology and tactics to help patients transition back into their communities.
Healthcare organizations are discovering that they need a lot more data than what can be found in the medical record to treat patients with behavioral health issues, and they're using digital health tools and platforms to improve that process.
At Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC), a provider-led collaboration of 16 nonprofits in New York City, care providers are using a variety of tools and platforms in treatment, including email and messaging, virtual visits, and ride-sharing resources.
"People do not belong in the hospital," says Barry Granek, LMHC, senior director of CBC's Pathway Home program. "They belong in the community, and we are doing everything we can to make sure that can happen."
CBC is among the hundreds, if not thousands, of healthcare organizations nationwide to take aim at the social determinants of health, those factors that sit outside the clinical realm but have a profound effect on healthcare. They include home environment, transportation, diet, exercise, job security, community trends, finances, and even legal issues.
Barry Granek, LMHC, Senior Director of the Pathway Home program at Coordinated Behavioral Care in New York City. Photo courtesy CBC.
CBC's Pathway Home program is an example of how that strategy is put into action. The program offers a transitional care model for patients going from the hospital or similar institutional setting back into the community. It operates under the assumption that the healthcare landscape is fragmented and siloed, and uses digital health and partnerships—including care coordination and management, expedited housing placement, skills-building and engagement, collaboration and meetings with family and community health services, and even some financial support—to make that transition.
Addressing Engagement Through Motivation
Among the partners in Pathway Home is Wellth, an NYC-based digital health company that targets care plan adherence. With the company's help, CBC built out a digital health platform that uses behavioral economics to address why patients don't follow doctors' orders or health habits. The platform uses an mHealth app to create an on-demand line of communication with patients, reminding them to take their medications, monitor their health, eat healthy meals, and gives patients small financial rewards and video offerings when they meet those goals.
"We focus on motivation," says Granek. The Wellth platform, he says, creates a level of engagement that resonates with patients, especially as they move from a strictly controlled environment to one that gives them more freedom to make choices and develop lifestyle habits. The ability to communicate with those patients at any time and place through digital health gives care providers the opportunity to make an impact when it matters the most—during times of stress, at meals, or when one is supposed to be taking medication.
Wellth's platform is one of many aimed at addressing the tricky topic of adherence through patient engagement, namely by offering rewards and encouragement. Providers have long struggled with finding the right tone or button to push to grab and keep their patients' attention. In the past, those incentives were often restricted by the infrequency of visits to the doctor's office and perhaps reinforced by mailings or the occasional phone call.
Digital health and virtual visits have changed that game, giving providers the opportunity to connect on demand. That's especially true as the nation deals with the pandemic.
When COVID-19 became commonplace in early 2020, healthcare organizations shifted to virtual care to reduce the spread of the virus. In many cases, both providers and consumers tried out digital health for the first time, using mHealth apps and telehealth platforms on mobile devices to keep the lines of communication open and manage care needs.
Those tools and strategies are taking hold now, both by patients becoming accustomed to digital health and providers looking to sustain that connection for care management.
"I think it's going to be more and more important as our world changes," says Granek, pointing to the adoption of digital access technologies in everything from banking and retail to travel and grocery shopping. "We're becoming more comfortable" with the technology.
Alongside that is an understanding that the pandemic has pushed depression, stress, and anxiety to unheard-of levels, in turn, straining the resources of care providers. In-person treatment can't be the only option anymore.
"We need a variety of options," says Granek.
A Strategy for Embracing Innovation
The Pathway Home program sits within CBC's Innovation Hub, where new ideas and technologies are tried out. Granek and his colleagues check out dozens, if not hundreds, of concepts and technologies, looking for ideas that they think can and will work.
"We've seen companies that come to us too early," he says. "They're not fully realized or they come to us for expertise." With the latter, companies see CBC as a place in which to integrate clinicians, rather than including them earlier on.
With the behavioral healthcare palette expanding to address issues outside of clinical treatment, CBC casts its net far and wide for innovative services like ridesharing, or nutrition counseling, or housing placement. Each can play a part in care management, contributing to a program that gives its patients a better chance at positive outcomes.
Granek notes that CBC works with a variety of partners, including managed care organizations (MCO). The company exists as a collaboration of several nonprofits, designed to sit alongside health systems and give consumers more options for care. But it also speaks to the value of working together in a more integrated healthcare network.
To that end, Granek would like to see more interest from payers, many of whom have been slow to embrace digital health without the proof that it's improving outcomes.
"We are seeing that some of them are starting to get into the business," he says. "You need that proof of concept, and you need the data to back it up. And that can take several years to complete all the pilot studies and come back to [payers]."
"We want to be early adopters, but not too early," he adds. "So, we'll choose carefully, shed the things that don't work, and double down on the things that do."
And as much as digital health can be used to address the social determinants of health, it can also serve as a barrier. Not everyone knows how to use the technology needed to access healthcare.
"We spend a good amount of time just teaching people how to use the technology," Granek says. "The resources exist … but they have to be easy to access and use if you want people to use them. And that makes implementation a challenge, because you might have to teach staff how to use [these devices] before you even get to" the patients.
That aside, Granek says CBC's commitment to learn will keep the organization on the right path as the healthcare ecosystem progresses. He looks forward to more partnerships in the future, perhaps some integration with social media channels to reach patients in their comfort zones and wants to create a more complete map of available resources in NYC, perhaps by integrating with location services.
"We want to manage the in-between and provide [support] around the visits," he says.
“PCORI proudly continues its important and unique role as the nation’s leading public funder of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research,” PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, said in a press release. “In a world of seemingly endless health information sources, and misinformation about clinically effective interventions, sound data that can help people make sense of their many options in a complex health care environment has never been more important.”
In all, PCORI has unveiled eight funding opportunities, known as PCORI Funding Announcements, or PFAs, that offer the potential for almost $300 million in total funding.
The organization, long known for its support of digital health research, has an ambitious goal of funding $1.8 billion in research projects over the next three years, including targeted funds to support clinical effectiveness research (CES) studies on alcohol abuse among teens, delirium in older adults, and mental health concerns in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. PCORI has set aside about $100 million for those three topics.
The largest funding announcement in this group, the Broad Pragmatic Studies PFA, which will offer funding of $5 million to $10 million for five-year CER studies in four categories: addressing disparities; assessment of prevention, diagnosis and treatment options; communication and dissemination research; and improving healthcare systems. Some $162 million has been set aside for those projects.
Another PFA sets aside up to $12 million for studies on improving patient-centered CER to withstand scientific scrutiny. And three more PFAs, totaling $23.5 million, target projects that implement results of PCORI-funded research and advance approaches to effective shared decision-making in practice settings.
PCORI is also seeking public comment through the end of January on its proposed Research Agenda, which would set the ground rules for future funding of CER projects and other research initiatives.
The non-profit's annual list of technology concerns in healthcare begins with a perennial threat, and includes a couple of dangers bumped up the list by the pandemic
The threat of cybersecurity attacks is still the top technological threat to healthcare organizations, according to the ECRI Institute. But a problem caused by the two-year-old pandemic isn’t that far behind.
The Pennsylvania-based non-profit, which analyzes the safety, quality and cost-effectiveness of care across the healthcare spectrum, says the threat of unauthorized online access or a data breach is as high as ever, due in large part to the sophistication of the attackers and the growing value of medical data.
“The question is not whether a given facility will be attacked, but when,” Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, the ECRIs’ president and chief executive officer, says in a press release accompanying the Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2022. “Responding to these risks requires not only a robust security program to prevent attacks from reaching critical devices and systems, but also a plan for maintaining patient care when they do.”
Schabacker notes that health systems are placing more and more faith on connected technology and integrated data systems, expanding the potential for hackers to find a vulnerability. That could lead to rescheduled healthcare appointments or medical procedures, the diversion of emergency resources or even the closure of departments of organizations.
Other threats include hacked digital health devices or platforms that fail to do what they’re supposed to do, potentially putting patients at risk or allowing access into one’s home through compromised smart devices.
Second on the list of hazards is a relatively new threat: supply chain shortfalls. While the danger of running out of critical supplies has always been there, the pandemic has pushed that concern up a few notches, as evidenced by the first-ever blood crisis announced by the Red Cross. And with organizations struggling to keep up, they’re likely reducing their emergency stockpiles to inadequate levels, which is another threat on the ECRI’s list.
Telehealth is also on the list, coming in at No. 5. While advocates have long maintained that virtual care can be as effective or even better than in-person care, the risk of incomplete or incorrect care is there when that care is delivered by providers who aren’t taking the right steps to assure safety and accuracy. And that threat is heightened by the fact that so many healthcare organizations quickly jumped on the telehealth bandwagon during the pandemic.
Finally, the ECRI notes that unreliable broadband connectivity can create Wi-Fi dropouts and dead zones, which cause disruptions in care, perhaps even deaths. While the threat is evident in any wired hospital or clinic, it’s particularly evident in telehealth programs that rely on broadband to connect care providers in distant, often remote places.
The ECRIs’ Top 10 list of threats is as follows:
Cybersecurity Attacks, which can disrupt healthcare delivery, impacting patient safety;
Supply Chain Shortfalls, which pose risks to patient care;
Damaged Infusion Pumps, which can cause medication errors;
InadequateEmergency Stockpiles, which could disrupt patient care during a public health emergency;
Telehealth, especially workflow and human factors shortcomings, which can cause poor outcomes;
Failure to Adhere toSyringe PumpBest Practices, which can lead to dangerous medication delivery errors;
AI-Based Reconstruction, which can distort images, threatening diagnostic outcomes;
Poor Duodenoscope ReprocessingErgonomics and Workflows, which put healthcare workers and patients at risk;
Disposable Gowns with insufficient barrier protection, which can put wearers at risk; and
Wi-Fi Dropoutsand Dead Zones, which can lead to patient care delays, injuries, and deaths.
Hearst Health is partnering with the UCLA Center for SMART Health to reinvent the seven-year-old prize as an award for innovative programs that use technologies like AI and digital health to affect health outcomes.
The UCLA Center for SMART Health and Hearst Health are partnering to reinvent the Hearst Health Prize, giving it more of an emphasis on digital health and data science.
The program was launched in 2015 by Hearst Health, a San Francisco-based care guidance network that includes First Databank, Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. For the past five years, the $100,000 prize has been awarded to population health programs.
The new partnership aims to turn the focus on healthcare organizations that are use data science, such as AI and digital health, to improve health outcomes. And it points to a growing interest in the development of technologies that pull in data from both inside and outside the healthcare ecosystem to forecast and affect clinical outcomes and improve health and wellness.
“The application of AI and data science to healthcare has reached a state of maturity where it is important to investigate the approaches that are most impactful in generating health outcomes,” Alex Bui, PhD, a co-director at the Center for SMART Health, said in a press release. “Our collaboration on the Hearst Health Prize will help disseminate best practices for the benefit of everyone.”
“With the increasing activity in healthcare related to artificial intelligence and other data science solutions, everyone working in healthcare should understand what programs and approaches result in better health for patients,” added Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, also a co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health.
The UCLA Center for SMART Health, which launched in 2016, is one of several organizations riding the wave of connected health innovation earlier this decade. The center “is dedicated to the research, evaluation, and application of digital health technologies and data-driven analyses that advance human health by predicting and reducing risk, improving decision-making, and optimizing the spectrum of clinical care activities.”
The partnership, financial details of which were not announced, will award its first Hearst health Prize through the UCLA Center for Digital Health in 2022.
“Our award provides a national platform to showcase how data science is making a difference in the lives of patients,” Hearst Health President Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, said in the press release. “The engineering and healthcare expertise that Alex and Arash have aligned at the UCLA Center for SMART Health makes them ideal partners for this next generation of the Hearst Health Prize in data sciences.”
The $9.8 million Neuromod Prize is aimed at scientists, researchers and clinicians who are studying how to improve clinical outcomes through targeted treatments that adjust nerve activity to improve organ function.
The National Institutes of Health is looking for innovative treatments for stimulating the peripheral nervous system to treat diseases and improve health.
The Neuromod Prize is a $9.8 million competition aimed at scientists, researchers and clinicians who are studying how to improve clinical outcomes through neuromodulation therapies, or targeted treatments that adjust nerve activity to improve organ function. The challenge is part of the NIH’s Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program.
“We’re asking potential solvers to use the foundational knowledge and technologies that have come out of our SPARC program and take it to the next level with their innovative concepts and ideas,” James M. Anderson, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, which oversees the NIH Common Fund, said in a press release. “This competition is an exciting opportunity to come up with tangible plans for harnessing the power of the body’s electrical system to help transform treatments for millions of people living with chronic or acute illnesses.”
According to the NIH, recent innovations in technology and an improved understanding of the relationship between the nervous system and organs and tissues have led to new treatments for a variety of health concerns. These treatments can target specific organs and functions or specific groups of organs and functions.
The competition is broken up into three phases, with only the first phase open at this time.
In phase 1, “participants will submit concept papers describing their proposed therapeutic approaches and their plans for conducting proof-of-concept studies, rationales for therapeutic use, and expectations for clinical impact.” A virtual information session is scheduled for February 7, and submissions are due by April 28.
A panel of judges will select as many as eight quarterfinalists to receive a share of the $800,000 prize pool and move on to the second phase, in which they’ll develop preclinical studies. That phase, worth up to $4 million, will take place later in 2022.
Semifinalist winners from phase 2 will move on to the third phase, with a $5 million prize, which is expected to launch in 2023. In that phase, participants will move from preclinical trials into advanced translational and clinical studies and regulatory approvals.
Black and underserved populations would rather use the telephone than an mHealth app in a remote patient monitoring program, according to researchers
A new study finds that Black and underserved populations would prefer to use the telephone to connect with care providers in a remote patient monitoring program.
The research by BJC HealthCare and the Washington University School of Medicine’s Healthcare Innovation Lab underscores the value of multiple, even personalized, communication channels between patients and health systems, and the challenges of finding a reliable way of engaging with populations dealing with the social determinants of health.
That will be important as more and more healthcare organizations launch RPM programs to monitor patients at home, particularly as they seek to improve outcomes in areas such as chronic care management, post-discharge care and behavioral healthcare.
Led by Bradley A. Fritz, MD, MSc, a member of the St. Louis-based health system’s Department of Anesthesiology, the research team tracked roughly 7,600 participants in a RPM program for COVID-19 treatment. They found that Black enrollees preferred using the telephone over an mHealth app by a margin of 68% to 44%, as did those from less disadvantaged neighborhood vs. those in better-off areas (59% to 43%). Conversely, retention rates were about the same between Black and white populations.
“Although we do not know what would have happened if the telephone arm had been unavailable, its presence appears to have bridged an engagement gap for Black patients,” the researchers said in a study published online by Springer. “Failure to bridge this gap might have worsened disparities between Black patients and other patients that already exist due to structural injustices (e.g., housing discrimination, limited public transportation) that limit access to primary care, nutritious food, and exercise.”
“We did not ask patients why they chose one program arm over the other, so we do not know if limited access to smart devices, limited internet connectivity, data privacy concerns, or other factors impacted their choices,” they added. “Distrust in healthcare organizations that have mistreated Black patients in the past may contribute to the engagement gap.”
“Our findings suggest that home monitoring programs may need to offer non-app-based options for participation to ensure they reach all groups of patients,” Fritz and his colleagues concluded.
The researchers also wondered whether the social isolation brought about by the pandemic played a part in the choice of communication platforms. They noted that several participants listed the ability to talk to someone on the phone as the best part of their experience.
The study points to the importance of planning an RPM program that encourages patient engagement, especially if it targets underserved populations or addresses barriers to accessing care. A program won’t work if it doesn’t pay attention to the patient.
The University of Rochester Medical Center will soon be deploying AI-enhanced devices to help clinicians improve point-of-care management
The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) will be deploying AI-enhanced mobile ultrasound devices later this year to help clinicians improve point-of-care treatment.
The upstate New York health system is partnering with Connecticut-based Butterfly Network on the program, which seeks to improve clinical decision support (CDS) and eliminate time spent sending patients off for imaging by giving clinicians the tools they need to do the work themselves.
URMC will begin training staff on how to use the handheld digital health devices this summer, with plans to roll them out to primary care providers, home care nurses, and second- and third-year medical students in the fall. Officials are also planning to include the devices in research projects and enterprise-wide strategies.
"Oftentimes, practitioners call upon imaging modalities to confirm a hypothetical diagnosis and treatment plan," says Michael F. Rotondo, URMC's CEO and vice dean for clinical affairs at the university's School of Medicine and Dentistry. "With Butterfly, care teams can introduce point-of-care ultrasound as part of the initial assessment. A small, stapler-sized imaging probe paired with a smart phone becomes an advanced bed-side imaging tool. Care teams can use this information to confirm or exclude their diagnosis improving the overall care."
The project points to a growing interest among healthcare organizations in digital health tools and platforms that give front-line care providers on-demand access to CDS resources, so they can make better decisions at the point of care instead of scheduling tests and unnecessarily extending the time between examination and diagnosis (as well as diagnosis and treatment).
Portable Point Of Care Ultrasound (PPOCUS) "is undergoing a revolution similar to what computing technology experienced in the 20th century, an acceleration in the development of portable, efficient, and affordable systems," wrote Patrick Lindsay, MB, BS; Lauren Gibson, MD; Edward A. Bittner, MD, PhD; Marvin G. Chang, MD, PhD, all of Massachusetts General Hospital, in a 2020 research article in the newsletter of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation.
"Ultrasound technology has evolved to the point that portable ultrasound devices can now fit seamlessly in a clinician's back scrub pocket at a price point as low as $2,000 USD," they wrote. "Furthermore, the imaging capabilities far exceed many of the best ultrasound machines of decades ago."
It also hits upon a lesser-known aspect to the digital health movement. While the nation is enamored with technology that allows people to access healthcare from their homes, cars, workplace, and other locations, they're paying less attention to the tools and platforms being developed for use in the health system.
In places like URMC, which serves a wide swath of rural New York, those devices and services can literally be lifesaving, especially if access to care is limited and it takes days or weeks to gather all the information necessary for an accurate diagnosis.
"While highly valuable, traditional ultrasound equipment can be rather unwieldy," says Rotondo. "It's cart-based and requires training whereas this much smaller bedside tool is highly portable and AI-empowered, to support caregivers of all kinds, including paramedics, nurses, physicians, and home healthcare workers. Our vision is that this will greatly aid in early detection and diagnosis and will accelerate treatment."
"Our intent is for Butterfly to integrate fully with our existing enterprise systems, workflows, and EMR vs. operating as a capability in a silo," he adds. "This is different and exciting; we're approaching imaging from an enterprise-wide lens—integrating it, optimizing it, and scaling it to improve care delivery across the institution."
The differences between digital health adoption outside the health system and within the health system are clear. Whereas consumer-facing technology focuses more on engagement and ease of use, tools and platforms for in-patient use must meet strict protocols associated with clinical care, particularly with regards to accuracy and reliability. Clinicians have long been wary of consumer-facing technology because they don't trust the data, and they're even more critical of technology they're using inside the four walls of the hospital.
Mobile clinical-grade devices, meanwhile, were in many cases first developed for uses outside the hospital setting, such as remote locations, disaster sites, and underdeveloped countries, where they could bring clinical services to first responders or medical workers. With the onset of the pandemic and the need to reduce contact between infected patients and care providers, those devices are now moving into the healthcare setting.
They're also being enhanced with AI technology.
"AI is a tool to support informed decision-making," says Rotondo. "The physician or care worker is ultimately charged with using her judgment before issuing any diagnosis and developing a plan. A diagnosis always needs to be done with judgment and consideration of likely alternate possibilities. In many cases, particularly in the early stages, it's tough to know exactly what's going on with a patient. In these cases, the best you can do is suggest a probable diagnosis and plan of action that might involve further tests or simply keeping an eye on the patient's progress."
Digital health advocates say AI has the potential to help clinicians make those decisions better and more quickly by automating the numbers-crunching and connecting the dots.
"The combination of cloud-based computing with advanced artificial intelligence has unearthed unprecedented opportunities for healthcare, and we believe the potential for AI in medical diagnostics is in its early phases," says Todd Fruchterman, MD, Butterfly Health's president and CEO. "We believe the combination of bedside imaging, powered by AI can help solve the problem of inadequately informed medical decisions. This is what we're passionate about. As with all applications of technology in healthcare, it needs to be done thoughtfully."
